A cartoon posted on Fatah’s official Facebook page. Photo: PMW.

Blaming Israel for the massive, coordinated terror attacks in Paris on Friday is part and parcel of Palestinian Authority ideology and policy, the director of Palestinian Media Watch told The Algemeiner on Monday.

Indeed, said Itamar Marcus — whose organization has been monitoring material emanating out of official Palestinian institutions, including the press, education system and mosques — said that PA President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah party “have spent years attributing all Palestinian problems and those of the rest of the world to Israel and/or Jews. Doing so in relation to the Paris attacks is par for the course.”

He cited an example from a religious lesson taught on PATV, during which the teacher said: “If one fish in the sea fights another fish, I’m sure the Jews are behind it.”

He also pointed to two cartoons posted on Fatah’s official Facebook page on Monday to illustrate how the PA is exploiting the massacre in France for its own purposes. One portrays Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu helping an ISIS terrorist near the Eiffel Tower aim his machine gun. The other shows two matches sticking out of a matchbox labeled “Terrorism,” one with the head of an ISIS terrorist and the other an Orthodox Jew.

A cartoon posted on Fatah’s official Facebook page. Photo: PMW.

This follows an op-ed published in Sunday’s official PA daily newspaper claiming that the Mossad was behind the Paris attacks, and statements made by Abbas and other Fatah members during the weekend likening ISIS to Israel.

Marcus told The Algemeiner that in January, following the Charlie Hebdo newspaper and HyperCacher supermarket murders in Paris, a poll indicated that 84% of Palestinians thought that Israel was behind the attacks, while a mere 8% thought the terrorism was the result of radical Islam in Europe.

“If a survey is conducted among Palestinians about Friday’s attacks, I can’t wait to see what it reveals,” Marcus said dryly.

“Abbas and all top PA leaders know they are spreading lies,” Marcus asserted. “But they want their people to hate Israelis and Jews, so that when they need to perpetrate violence and terror, the population is ready and willing to comply.”

This is what we’re seeing now with the latest wave of terrorism, Marcus said. “All Abbas had to do was lie and tell his people that Israel is planning to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque – something that more than half the Palestinian population believes – and then sit back and let young terrorists do the dirty work.”

Hatred, concluded Marcus, “serves Abbas’ political goals.”